


to remember is its own form of torture

by starblessed



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally, Russian Royalty RPF
Genre: F/M, Graphic Description, Murder, Other, Psychological Trauma, Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 05:37:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14206254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starblessed/pseuds/starblessed
Summary: Anastasia wishes she did not remember, but she is never allowed to forget.





	to remember is its own form of torture

**Author's Note:**

> So, I surprised myself with this one. It was written for a Tumblr prompt, and I never meant for it to get as dark as it did, but... hey.
> 
> I’ve just read so much about the last night of the romanovs, and I really wanted to delve in to what Anya remembers + how she escaped that night -- because the musical implies that she was there, but leaves it up to interpretation. IRL, an injured Anastasia did wake up on top of her family’s bodies in the woods and begin screaming, until someone killed her. Everything I write happening here is as accurate as I could get it, according to testimony of guards in the room that night.
> 
> Since the musical is one great historical AU, I wanted to play with it. WARNINGS for guns, violence, death, blood, PTSD, and, well... warnings for a lot of stuff. There is Dimya here too, but this wound up focusing more on Anya and her family.

There are scars on Anya’s breast; once deep purple, now white and faded, but still as ghastly and gruesome a thing that could ever mar someone’s body. She counted three of them. Three scars, from something sharp and ruthless being driven into her body.

She remembers tracing them over countless times. In the hospital, lying in bed, her skull aching from where it had been nearly blown into pieces by a bullet wound, Anya pulled the front of her nightgown down and traced the still raw wounds. During the frigid nights on her hike from Perm, she pressed a hand to her chest, and traced their familiar outline through layers of clothing. An ache resonated through her chest whenever it snowed. She was constantly aware of them; when she worked, when she slept, when she breathed.

For so long, she wondered about those scars.

One quiet night in the Yusupov Palace, she shared them for the first time. They had nearly reached their goal of getting to Paris; in fact, it was the night before she was taken in for questioning. The sound of Vlad snoring on the sack of lentils echoed throughout the room. It masked Anya’s heavy breathing as she tugged down the front of her blouse with shaking hands to reveal the white outlines.

She hadn’t felt exposed; she knew exactly where Dmitry was looking, and it wasn’t at her barely covered breasts. His gaze was fixed on the scar that traced the lines of her ribs; on the jagged cut in the center of her chest; on the torn cartilage that rested just next to her heart.

His hand twitched, but he held himself back. Anya knew just what he was feeling. Anytime she saw the scars, she could not help tracing them herself.

“I don’t remember what happened to me,” she told him that night. “When the nurses found me, I was covered in blood. A bullet grazed my head badly; and someone did _this_ to me.” She closes her eyes, and hears the distant screams all over again; she smells something sharp and acrid, and remembers what sounded like the far off boom of thunder.

That was all she remembered for so long. Every day, she was haunted by it.

She never understood why the sight of snow shot a chill straight through to her bones. She had no idea why the noise of a truck backfiring sent her every nerve spiraling into panic, why her head automatically filled with death and fear.

Now, Anya _knows_. Now she remembers everything.

It would be so much easier, she sometimes thinks, if she didn’t. She wonders if forgetting was not a mercy; God’s tiny act of providence, to keep her sanity intact. She does not want to remember that long fight across the snowy ground, dragging herself away from the shouts of men in the darkness, with no idea where she was going or what she was leaving behind. She does not want to remember that tiny cellar room, with her family clustered around her.

She still feels Toby’s soft fur in her arms. She can hear her mother’s voice, warning them in her soft, accented English not to do anything to agitate the guards (they were only supposed to speak Russian, but their mother defied that rule as often as she got the chance). 

When she closes her eyes, she is back there again. There is Mama, straight and proud in her chair. Alexei sits next to her, fidgeting, his poor legs limp in front of him. Olga’s face was drawn as she stood behind Mama; she looked far too world-weary for her young years. Tatiana kept wringing her hands in an unconscious expression of nerves; her eyes were curious, anxious, but her face remained impassive. Maria was serene, eyes flickering between the two guards who watched over them in the silence; she knew their names, just as she knew the names of all the guards. Papa stood in front of them all, a silent sentinel. Papa, their protector. Mama, proud and strong. Olga, the oldest of them all, always bearing the most burden. Tatiana, whose perceptiveness was matched only by the responsibility she shouldered for all of them. Maria, ever friendly, ever hopeful. Alexei, older than his years, but still so young, such a child.

Anastasia stood away from them all. In that little room, where the shadows were long and the line lightbulb swung above her head, she could taste dread in her throat. Still, she told herself that she was not afraid.

Her sisters and parents huddled together; Anastasia kept a few feet’s distance between them.

For all that she remembers, Anya still cannot recall _why_ she did that.

She remembers the shooting. She remembers the screams. Papa’s startled question was cut off by a bullet tearing through his heart, and it was all over from there.

Maria was shot down as she rushed towards the door, but she still hammered on it until her fists bled. Anastasia hugged her and sobbed, sobbed until something sharp came down on her breast — again, and again, and again…

Most of the bayonets missed their marks. They were blocked by the diamonds and rubies sewn into the underclothes she wore. A few of them, however, struck deep.

When the world went dark, and silence reigned, she must have seemed dead. Looking back, Anya thinks that was the only thing that saved her: she slept, while the rest of her family died.

She does not remember dragging herself through the woods. She does not remember the nurse who discovered her. All she remembers after the hell of that one small room is the hospital, an ache in her head, and three wounds across her chest.

“If you want,” she said to Dmitry, that cold night in the palace, “you can… touch them. It’s alright.”

A startled look flashed through Dmitry’s eyes, followed by something that was almost fear. It was the last thing he wanted to do; still, he could not resist.

When his fingers grazed over her worn flesh, she could not breathe. It was the first time anyone had ever touched her in duh a way. He was gentle as a feather, timid and careful, as if she were a doll that could break any moment.

All Dmitry was able to say after taking them in was, “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t apologize now. Not when Anya is wrapped up in his arms, trembling from her another nightmare; not when he nightgown has fallen low enough to reveal the line of white just above her heart.

“There was too much blood…” she whispers into his neck. Her voice is choked by sobs. Even the soft rhythm of his hand rubbing up and down her back, and the familiar scent of him surround her, cannot calm her racing heart. “That sick smell… and pain. There was so much _pain,_ my god…”

She hears the _I’m sorry_ dancing at the top of his tongue again, but he does not say it. They have both come too far past that point by now. There can be no apologies for what has already happened. The things Anya remembers, she can never forget.

She does not want to forget ever again. She _needs_ to remember. To remember for Olga, who fell back when their mother’s body collapsed on top of her; for Tatiana, who stood to shield her younger sisters with her own body when they put a bullet through her head; for Maria, who clung to her and sobbed as she bled out; for Alexei, still sitting in his chair stunned as their parents’ blood dripped from his face. For Mama, who crossed herself a second before they shot her. For Papa, who couldn’t believe it until the first man pulled the trigger.

She needs to remember them.

She can never let go of that awful night, for as long as she lives.

Dmitry does not apologize. Instead, he holds her close, gripping her as if he never wants to let go. Anya has been touched like this before, but it means so much more coming from Dmitry. In spite of everything, he makes her feel anchored. There is no safer place in the world than his arms.

“You’re here,” he tells her. “You’re safe. It’s over. You’re alive. You’re safe.”

Anya is alive, and she has the scars to prove it.

This is exactly why she can never allow herself to forget again.  



End file.
